Rather suddenly, everyone has become concerned about mold; we think of mold as a dangerous organism that can ruin our houses or make us very ill. The news talks about "Black Mold" and its toxic effect. But what is mold, and what makes it dangerous?Why does mold grow in our homes? What can we do to fight this nuisance? Below are some facts to help you get your hands around mold get mold out of your house.

History of Mold

As far as scientists know, mold has been with us since the dawn of time; there appear to be thousands (maybe even millions) of species of mold; mold is found everywhere in the outdoor environment, growing on soil, plants, animals, and even rocks, bridges and boats. Mold sends in seeds (or spores) into the air to find new places to grow, and so believe it or not, there is mold in every breath we take! (Most of us breathe about 22,000 times each day, so we end up inhaling quite a bit of mold.) Sometimes, conditions are just right for mold to grow very well, and sometimes this occurs in our houses. Without the natural cleaning processes in the outdoor environment, the spore count inside our home gets so high that we inhale enough mold to make us sick. Rarely, mold even kills us! But do not panic - you can fight mold, control mold, and kill mold. Before running away from your home, learn and understand mold and its effects. Simply take control.

What Mold Needs

Like most living organisms, mold needs three things to survive - food, water, and heat. And like any living organism, if you take away any one of these, there's trouble. Without food, all living organisms die. Similarly, without water, all living organisms die. But here's a fascinating fact about mold - if you take away the food or water or heat, mold doesn't die. Instead, mold colonies just stay down until conditions are good again - mold doesn't die (unless you kill it), it just goes to sleep (goes dormant). And the dormant mold will wait patiently until conditions are right. Our challenge is to figure out how to take away the things mold needs to survive, because then mold goes to sleep and stops producing its "poisonous seeds" (spores); our next challenge is to kill the surviving dormant colonies, and return to healthy air in our homes.

Why Is Mold Suddenly a Problem?

It seems as though we have suddenly become concerned about mold. We can't remember our parents talking about mold, and our grandparents never mention the "M" word. But in today's high-tech world, everyone knows that too much mold can be horrific. What has changed? Are there reasons for the sudden awareness of mold?

What Changes?

There are 3 basic reasons that mold has suddenly become an issue, and all of them are due to very basic changes in the ways we build our homes and the ways we live today.

Reason 1

We have never lived in homes as air-tight as the homes we live in today. It was only about 50 years ago that we started putting "air-tight" insulation in our exterior walls and around the doors and windows of our homes, and thick insulation in our attics.In just the past 40 years, we have taken extreme measures to prevent fresh air from leaking into our homes. And every air-tight window, door, wall, and ceiling saves a little money on the cost to heat and cool our homes; but guess what - mold loves closed in spaces with no fresh air, no air movement, and no sunlight! Did you know that our windows now have ultraviolet sun ray resistance to prevent fading our drapes, furniture, and carpet? Guess again - mold hates sunlight (especially ultraviolet rays from the sun), and grows best in dark spaces hidden from the sun. And mold loves places where no air flows, like basements, crawlspaces, closets, and poorly ventilated attics. Why does mold hate fresh air and sunlight? For the simple reason that fresh air contains natural chemicals that kill mold, like hydrogen peroxide (which we pour on wounds to fight infection), and ozone (which kills mold with a vengeance). And natural sunlight's ultraviolet rays kill mold like a dangerous electric shock.

Imagine putting a cardboard box tight against the corner of a basement block wall. There's food for the mold (the cardboard box) because mold can eat anything carbonaceous (wood, paper, plastic, and carpet). There's warmth for the mold because basements are usually at about 60'F or higher. And there's water for the mold because there's moisture in the basement air (we dehumidify our basements to reduce the humidity, after all). And there's moisture in the block walls and concrete floors of our basements. Bingo - mold has what it needs to thrive. Now where would you expect to find mold growing on that box? Would you expect to see mold on the parts of the box touching the walls and floors, or on the parts of the box exposed to the basement air. You guessed it - the mold grows best on the surfaces that get no fresh air - no natural cleaning agent. Now take the same cardboard box and set it up in a ping pong table in the same basement. Will you see mold grow on the box? No, because the food (the cardboard) is exposed to more fresh air and the mold has trouble growing. Now imagine that the cardboard box is the carpet on the basement floor and wood panels or drywall on the basement walls. Get the point? We must keep our basement very dry to prevent mold growth! This means proper control of the water around our homes from rain; it means good drainage at the bottom of our basement walls; it means dehumidification to dry the basement air, it means fixing water leaks right away. We fight mold by taking away its water supply.

Reason 2

We are building our homes out of things that are easy for mold to eat. Long ago (60 years or more), our homes were still built largely out of wood products, and we know that mold can eat wood. So we might think that the solution to our dilemma is to build our homes out of things mold can't eat, like stones, steel, and glass. Do homes built with only bricks & stones have mold? Yes they do - even though mold cannot eat a brick, mold can grow on a brick! Mold cannot eat glass, but mold can grow on glass! How? Well, mold spores land on a moist, warm stone and already have 2 of the things necessary to grow (moisture & heat); then small fragments of dust, or ground up insect particles, or dead skin cells land on the warm moist rock and supply the necessary food. As building technology progresses, we have learned to make regular boards, then plywood boards, then chip boards and then particle boards. Now if mold can eat a tree, don't you suppose it can eat sawdust even better? Mold loves these new ground-up or chipped wood products assembled with edible glues (resins). And so we now have air-tight homes built with predigested wood. It's as if we are doing everything in our power to help mold grow in our homes - no fresh air and wood products that are the equivalent of oatmeal for mold. The leak in the kitchen sink drain now drips precious water onto a cabinet made of wood dust and glue. The steam from our showers now gets pumped in poorly ventilated attics covered with chip-board sheathing. The leak around our window now lets water soak into the wall insulation, with the water for days or even months feeding the mold we cannot see, as though we are holding a glass of water against the lips of our thirsty enemy. In today's world of residential and commercial construction, we must control moisture in every way possible if we hope to stop the mold! This means controlling liquid water and reducing the humidity in our homes. And to top off the problem with whipped cream and cherries, we now have plastic paint (mold eats plastic) with no toxic elements (like lead-based paint) to stop the mold. One of the ironies of taking lead out of our paint is that mold can now easily eat our paint and survive.

Reason 3

Today we spend almost 95% of our time in air-conditioned environments in our homes, offices, and automobiles. In years gone by, we hung our clothes outside on a line to dry, sat on the front porch to sip lemonade, and left all the windows and doors open in warm seasons to soothe the heat (we now love our air conditions). With modern television, computers, video games, and air conditioning, who needs to go outside? The closed-in environments of our homes and buildings have another serious problem - the natural cleaning products in the fresh air that comes in when we open a door get depleted very rapidly. Believe it or not, thousands of chemicals are slowly leaking out of about every thing in our homes. In the past 50 years, we have developed over 150,000 special chemicals which we add to carpets, paints, wood products, furniture, clothing, and plastics - the day of "happy" chemistry is upon us. Wild-eyed chemists have figured out how to make thousands of complex organic chemicals which serve special purposes for everything in our homes. Here's a fun game - read the ingredients on the back of your shampoo bottle and tell me what you are doing to wash your hair. Better yet, show the same ingredient list to a degreed chemist and ask what these chemicals are and what they do. Guess what - all you'll hear is mumble jumble. Do you think a chemist who works for 40 years with cyclohexane can tell you much about poly-chlorinated biphenyls. Can a chemist who works in the field of dioxins tell you anything about red dye #2 in kool-aid? You get the point - we are so smart we don't know much about most of our high-tech world. Now all of these chemicals are slowly dissipating into the air we breathe in our homes, just floating around with nothing to do and nowhere to go. But the fresh air coming in through our door when we come and go has chemicals that attack these indoor contaminants, breaking them into harmless pieces. Now if we let in enough clean air, the indoor air stays relatively clean. But if we close our homes and buildings too tight, the natural cleaning agents in the fresh air get depleted very quickly and we spend all day inhaling POB's, dioxin, and red dye #2.

Conclusion

"Mother Nature" is designed to keep the air (and water) clean. Man does everything in his power to keep mother nature outside of buildings. New building products and their chemicals pollute our indoor air and feed mold. New building techniques convert our homes into the equivalent of a petri dish full of delicious nutrients for mold. This about it - control moisture and you will control mold. Think again - let in fresh air and destroy dangerous chemicals and control mold. Properly ventilate attics, basements, and crawlspaces and control mold. Keep your home dry. Help you home breathe. And remember, if your house is dry and breathing well, there will be a lot less mold in every breathe you take!